Loser Monday ~ Fruit recipe

Its Loser Monday and well you know what that means... A post from regi. Hah! I told Sharon a couple weeks back if it werent for Loser Mondays, my blog would get dusty and aint that the truth lately.

So... I gained .7 pounds according to the wii fit. The thing is grilling me now... it wanted to know why I had gained. LMAO... I was being sternly talked to by a machine. Sheesh. It also let me know I should weigh in at the same time of day (which I already knew mr smarty pants thank you very much!) and that if i checked in more then once a week with the wii, i would do better. *sigh* I know that too.


My recipe of the week is right out of my copy of YOU on a diet by Michael F Roizen and Mehmet C Oz. Sharon asked for fruit and so here is one that sounds yummy and simple.

Sliced Peaches with Raspberries blueberries and chocolate chips

2 small ripe peaches, sliced
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 cup (1 ounce) fresh raspberries
1/4 cup (1 ounch) fresh blueberries
1 1/2 tablespoons mini semisweet chocolate chips

Combine sliced peaches with cinnamon and nutmeg, transfer to 2 serving plates. Top peaches with raspberries, blueberries and chocolate chips.

2 servings, 46 cals per serving, total fat .4 g, sat fats .1 g, fiber 2.6g, carbs 11.5 g, sugar 8.9 g, protein 1 g

This book is outstanding... honestly it is. If you dont have it... run, dont walk to the nearest store and get yourself a copy. It explains so many things I had no idea of. Things like why our bodies need protein and carbs (healthy ones) and why excess sugar is so bad. Sure you hear from experts that lean protein is good... healthy carbs are best and excess sugar is bad... but why? What do these things do to your body ... how do they affect you chemically... and what is the result from eating the good ones as opposed to the bad ones besides gaining a few pounds. I am still reading the thing and once I finish it ... I am going to reread it again and again. I wish I could say i have lost a ton of weight and revamped my lifestyle since I started reading it but I havent and thats because A.) I am still reading it and B.) I wasnt following their advice and/or doing what I should. Isnt that truly the problem for many of us. We KNOW what we should be doing. We KNOW what we shouldnt be doing... but its easier to stick to old habits. Its so much easier to just continue on the way you are and promise yourself you will start tomorrow then it is to crawl out of that rut and make changes starting now. For the whole getting out of a rut I have discovered I needed an inspiration. Soo...

I have been thinking about my girls a lot lately... not the whole "damn it why cant you clean your room" or "call me more often" kind of stuff. I have been thinking about their graduations and possible weddings... and possible grandchildren, I have also been thinking about my mom a lot and how awful it was when she died the year I was set to turn 30.

My mom was a spunky lady, very caring and giving. My sister reminds me so much of her, I am more like our dad I think. Anyways... she died at the young age of 51. She was under a lot of stress and having "stomach pains" and "heartburn". My husband and I made her go see a doc... but we didnt go with her and express our concerns. So she walked out of the docs office with a prescription for heartburn meds. We assumed the doc did a full exam. We also assumed she told him everything that was going on .. but regardless... she died 3 days later of a sudden massive heart attack. That was in 1995 and there isnt a damn day that goes by that I dont miss that woman. She was truly my best friend as well as being my biggest supporter. I feel jipped... and my kids were too. So what is my damn excuse? Why in the hell would I want to put my girls through what I went through... The answer is I dont... I owe it to myself and my girls to make sure I am around a long time. Someday... a long time from now, I want to be peering over their shoulders, watching them diaper their children... and of course telling them they are doing it all wrong. *smiles*

So thats my inspiration... the thing that will help me out of my rut... the thing that will keep me going when my resolve is being whittled away by a chocolate brownie or a box of girl scout cookies. My mom and my girls...

~Regi

The teensy weensy spider...

Today was a busy day in the garden! We went on a nature walk, discovered an odd looking little beetle, a teeny tiny red spider on a leaf, found tons of beautiful red, yellow, and yellow and green mixed leaves on the ground and now Ms Maddy has decided she wants to have a leaf collection. (she was pretty bummed that we didnt bring a container to put bugs in so that she could bring the little red spider home) I agreed that was quite a shame and hopefully she didnt see my shudder as I said that. Maddy also toted home 2 pieces of garbage she found along the path, and had quite the "rant" about litterers and how they are damaging our planet.

We did math (reluctantly) and worked on vocabulary. She wanted to know if she really had to look the words up in the dictionary and write down the definitions in her vocab binder and I said... well lets see... what does dimension mean? or... what is the bow, or stern of a ship? What is a savage? she just gave me a look and went to get her dictionary. *sigh* Savage led into quite a discussion on perceptions. We discussed how an alien civilization might see our planet of animal, vegetable and fruit eating creatures and call us savages for killing plants and animals to eat. Then we discussed Columbus and how he treated the native peoples that he considered "savages" that he found on his journeys. Ms Maddy is not at all impressed with Mr Christopher Columbus and thinks people should write to the President of the United States so that we can stop celebrating Columbus day as a country, she says its wrong to celebrate a day of a person who harmed so many people. My little activist... We will have fun with that I think *smiles*

She and I will start reading "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott tomorrow. I remember it as an awesome story, we will see if its still as fun when reading it aloud to each other.

and so it begins...

Tomorrow we are going to the State of Maine Museum in Augusta. It should be a lot of fun. Just the thing to wrap up the unit on Maine we have been finishing up. She just finished reading a really good book called Sign of the Beaver. Its about a young boy whose father leaves him to take care of the cabin and the crops while he travels to massachusetts to bring back his wife, their daughter and the new baby. He tells his son Matt it should take 7 weeks. Maddy and I learned quite a bit about life in those days...

We have also been studying nutrition for our health unit. We have read about and manipulated the food pyramid... and currently we are studying a book called The Healthy Body Cookbook by Joan D'Amico and Karen Eich Drummond. It has a lot of interesting articles about our body and what foods we need to keep it healthy. Maddy has been having fun reading the articles and doing some of the experiments.

For Math we have been using Saxon's math 54 ... (typically used in 4th grade) we used a placement test to see which books we should purchase. She is really learning a lot ... and so is mum. *smiles*

For science so far we have studied volcanoes and how the earth is made up. We are moving into rocks and minerals... and I hope to take her and her sister on a rock expedition later on this spring/early summer. She has also developed a fascinatin with horseshoe crabs... and has been feeding the ants outside to see what different foods they like to eat. Everytime someone comes over she is careful to remind them to walk around her pets who decided to settle right in the middle of the walk way. Im not sure what we would have done if the ants had decided to move indoors... might have had a battle on our hands. *smile*

For reading etc we have been rather relaxed... the child is a avid reader, she is reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Rowlings, Dragon Rider by Funke, just finished up Sign of the Beaver by Speare, and a book called East by Pattou. Sometimes I will have her write a letter to a friend about the book, or have her re-write the ending of the story etc... but mostly she just drifts from book to book...

I am really looking forward to our trip to Augusta tomorrow... if only Ms Maddy would go to sleep... she is really torqued up about our adventure.

~peace
Regi